Hans Hartung Trivia Questions

Though German-born, Hartung became a naturalized French citizen and was a pioneer of lyrical abstraction and tachisme, predating American Abstract Expressionism.

He is famous for vigorous, scratched brushstrokes, but the spray gun technique is associated with later artists like Jackson Pollock, not Hartung.

Nazi regime labeled his abstract works degenerate; he fled Germany in 1935, eventually settling in France and fighting against the Nazis.

Hartung had major exhibitions in New York and other US cities from the 1950s onward, gaining significant international acclaim.

He admired the spontaneity and energy of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy, which influenced his gestural, linear abstractions.

He joined the Legion in 1939, was severely wounded in 1944, and his leg was amputated—a fact that shaped his later, more gestural works.

The Grand Prix for painting at the 1960 Biennale went to Jean Fautrier; Hartung won the International Prize for painting in 1960, not the top Grand Prix.

Hartung remained active and productive until his death in 1989, but he was not paralyzed; he used a wheelchair after his leg amputation.